holding, in a case where the plaintiff was struck by a train and killed, that a jury could find the defendant’s failure to guard the railroad crossing to be palpably unreasonable because it “knew of the risk, knew that having guards operate the gate eliminated that risk, and knew that people who ordinarily traversed the crossing during the racing season likely would have believed that open gates meant it was safe to proceed”
How later courts described this case
- holding, in a case where the plaintiff was struck by a train and killed, that a jury could find the defendant’s failure to guard the railroad crossing to be palpably unreasonable because it “knew of the risk, knew that having guards operate the gate eliminated that risk, and knew that people who ordinarily traversed the crossing during the racing season likely would have believed that open gates meant it was safe to proceed”
- noting that one consideration in deciding whether property is in dangerous condition is if “the property poses a danger to the general public when used in the normal, foreseeable manner”
- analyzing risk posed by an unguarded railroad crossing from viewpoint of reasonable members of the general public
- explaining the Garrison standard
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
STEIN, J.,
concurring.
I concurred in Garrison v. Township of Middletown, 154 N.J. 282, 295-312 , 712 A.2d 1101 (1998), because I disagreed with the Court’s holding that “a condition of public property is not dangerous unless the specific plaintiff that brought the litigation satisfies the 'threshold requirement' that he or she used due care when encountering the property.” Id. at 295 , 712 A.2d 1101 . (Stein, J., concurring). Because I do not read the Court’s opinion in this appeal to rest on the application of that aspect of Garrison with which I disagreed, I join in the Court’s thoughtful and persuasive opinion.